Medicine: Viper Heads

Moss grown on a human skull, the thigh bone of a hanged man, the ashes
of a coal-black cat's head, animal excrement, black tips of crab's
claws, burned hart's horn, toads, newts, serpentsthese were medi-
eval medicaments whose use has not yet entirely disappeared. Last week
the American Medical Association reported a Frenchman's use of viper
heads as a diuretic. Professor G. Billard of the Uni-versity of
Clermont was consulted in a young girl's case of scarlet fever. Her
kidneys would not function. Professor Billard had recently prepared an
ancient diuretic which the French...